The present invention relates to spread spectrum time division duplex (TDD) communication systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for controlling outer loop transmission power within TDD communication systems.
Spread spectrum TDD systems carry multiple communications over the same spectrum. The multiple signals are distinguished by their respective chip code sequences (codes). Referring to FIG. 1, TDD systems use repeating frames 34 divided into a number of time slots 371–37n,, such as fifteen time slots. In such systems, a communication is sent in a selected time slot out of the plurality of time slots 371–37n using selected codes. Accordingly, one frame 34 is capable of carrying multiple communications distinguished by both time slot and code. The combination of a single code in a single time slot is referred to as a physical channel. Based on the bandwidth required to support a communication, one or multiple physical channels are assigned to that communication.
Most TDD systems adaptively control transmission power levels. In a TDD system, many communications may share the same time slot and spectrum. While user equipment (UE) 22 is receiving a downlink transmission from a base station, all the other communications using the same time slot and spectrum cause interference to the specific communication. Increasing the transmission power level of one communication degrades the signal quality of all other communications within that time slot and spectrum. However, reducing the transmission power level too far results in undesirable signal to noise ratios (SNRs) and bit error rates (BERs) at the receivers. To maintain both the signal quality of communications and low transmission power levels, transmission power control is used.
The purpose of power control is to use the minimum power required to allow each transport channel (TrCH) to operate with the Block Error Rate (BLER) no higher than its required level. The standard approach to TDD downlink power control is a combination of inner and outer loop control. In this standard solution, the UE transmits physical layer transmit power control (TPC) commands to adjust the base station transmission power.
A base station sends a transmission to a particular UE. Upon receipt, the UE measures the signal interference ratio (SIR) in all time slots and compares this measured value to a targetSIR. This target SIR is generated from the BLER signaled from the base station. As a result of a comparison between the measured SIR value with the target SIR the UE transmits a TPC command to the base station. The standard approach provides for a TPC command per coded composite transport channel (CCTrCH). The CCTrCH is a physical channel which comprises the combined units of data for transmission over the radio interface to and from the UE or base station. This TPC command indicates to the base station to adjust the transmission power level of the downlink communication. The base station, which is set at an initial transmission power level, receives the TPC command and adjusts the transmit power level in all time slots associated with the CCTrCH in unison. The inner loop power control algorithm controls transmit power to maintain the received SIR as close as possible to a target SIR by monitoring the SIR measurements of the data. The outer loop power control algorithm controls the target SIR to maintain the received quality BLER as close as possible to a target quality BLER based on the Cyclic Redundancy Code (CRC) check of the data. The output from the outer loop power control is a new target SIR per CCTrCH used for the inner loop power control.
There are four main error sources in transmission power control: 1) channel error; 2) systematic error; 3) random measurement error; and 4) coded composite transport channel (CCTrCH) processing error. The systematic error and the random measurement error are corrected reasonably by the inner loop power control by monitoring the SIR measurements. The CCTrCH processing error is corrected by either the outer loop power control or the inner loop power control by using relative SIR measurements among the codes. The channel error is related to unknown time-varying channel conditions.
In power control systems, the outer loop power control algorithm would set a target SIR for each CCTrCH based on the required target BLER, assuming a most plausible channel condition. Therefore, the mismatch between the target BLER and the mapped target SIR varies depending on the actual channel condition, and it is especially large at very low BLER. Since the outer loop power control depends on the CRC check, it often takes a long time to converge to the required target SIR for the low BLER.
Accordingly, there is a need for outer loop power control which determines the actual channel conditions so that a proper value for the target SIRs is used.